Old Filth - Jane Gardam [48]
“You could, actually,” he said, not looking at her, “perhaps do something about Lady Feathers’s room. Get rid of her—er—the c-c-c-clothes. I believe it’s usual.”
“Sir Edward.” She came round the table and leaned against the window ledge looking at him, arms folded. “I’ve something to say.”
“Oh. Sorry. Yes, Mrs.-er. Mrs. T.”
“Look, it’s too soon. You’re doing it all too soon. You started in on the letters before the funeral. You ought to let them settle. I know, because of Mother. And it’s too soon to go round handing out presents, you’ll muddle them. I’m sorry, but you’re not yourself.”
“Mrs.-er, if you don’t want to do Lady Feathers’s room I’m sure that Chloe—the one from the church—would do it.”
“I’m sure she would, too. Let’s forget all that though, I’m only interested in stopping you driving. Now then.”
His face, with the light from behind her full on it, she saw must have been wonderful once. Appealing, as he gazed at her.
She carried a mug of coffee out to Garbutt who was waiting near the house wall that stood raw and naked without its ivy.
“He’s off in the car. Visiting.”
“On his own?”
“Yes. On the motorways. I’ve told him he’s not rational yet. She’d have never let him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s answering every letter return of post and ticking them off on a list, every one hand-done and different and she’s scarcely cold. There was a green one—”
“Green what?”
“Letter. From Paris. He threw it in the bin. It upset him. He wrote out an answer and they say he was up the street with it in his hand before the postman was hardly gone.”
They both regarded the wall.
Garbutt knew she had read the letter in the waste-paper basket. He would not have read it.
“You know, he’s never once called me by my name. She did, of course.”
Garbutt finished his coffee, upturned the mug and shook the dregs out on the grass. “Well, I can’t see we can do much about it. He’s the Law. The law unto himself.”
“I tell you, we’ll both be out of a job by Monday and who else is he going to kill on the road? That’s what I care about.”
“He might make it,” he said, handing her back the mug. “There’s quite a bit to him yet.”
Nevertheless, on the Thursday afternoon Filth found the gardener hanging about the garage doors.
“I’ve had her looked at,” said Filth, “I seem to be having to tell everybody. She’s a Mercedes. I’m a good driver. Why have you removed all the ivy?”
“It was her instructions. Not a fortnight since. Sir Edward, you’re barmy. It’s too soon. You’re pushing eighty. She’d say it was too soon. You haven’t a notion of that A1.”
“Is it the A1 now? I must look at the map. Good God, I’ve known the Great North Road for years. I was at school up there.”
“Well, you’ll not know it now. That’s all I’ll say. Goodbye then, sir.”
Filth looked up the seaside town of Herringfleet where Babs hung out and was surprised. He’d thought it might be somewhere around Lincolnshire, but it was nearer to Scotland. Odd, he thought, how I could still find my way round the back streets of Hong Kong and the New Territories with my eyes shut and England now is a blur.
Whatever was Babs doing up there? Where would he stay if she couldn’t put him up? There seemed to be no hostelry in Herringfleet that the travel guides felt very happy about.
But he went on with his plans, polishing his shoes, looking out shirts. He loved packing. He packed his ivory hair brushes, his Queen Mary cufflinks from the War and, rather surprising himself, Betty’s Book of Common Prayer. Maybe he’d give it to Babs. Or Claire, if he ever found her. He folded two of Betty’s lovely Jacqumar scarves, packaged up some recipe books and then, in a sudden fit of panache, swept a great swag of her jewellery from the dressing-table drawer and poured it into a jiffy bag. He put the scarves and recipe books into another jiffy bag and sealed both of them up.
On Friday morning early, Mrs.-er standing on the front doorstep with a face of doom and Garbutt up his ladder at work on ivy roots and not even turning